There are songs that define eras, and then there are songs that float above them.
‘Sunday‘ by Sonic Youth does both.
Released in 1998 as the first and only single from their tenth album ‘A Thousand Leaves‘, ‘Sunday’ feels like a postcard from a dream where noise, melody and memory coexist without borders. The riff — famously borrowed from Helium’s ‘Skeleton‘ — unfolds slowly, like it’s remembering itself, while Thurston and Kim let the atmosphere breathe between every note.
The Harmony Korine–directed video is pure late-90s cultural poetry: Macaulay Culkin, Rachel Miner, ballerinas, banjos, slow motion, fast motion, innocence and distortion — all suspended inside the same frame. It doesn’t explain the song; it extends it.
‘Sunday’ is a mood, a document, a moment where Sonic Youth proved that growing older didn’t mean growing quieter — it meant growing wider.
This one’s for the afternoon sun through dusty windows.
For the last cigarette.
For the memory of something you can’t quite name.
Rolling Craze, Toasting Indie 